Acer's Atom-powered Altos easyStore eyes-on
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 4th 2009 6:37PM
posted Mar 4th 2009 6:37PM
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How would you reinstall the OS on that thing if it broke, or if you wanted to change something?
Methinks a NAS doesn't need an OS.
It says it's running Windows Home Server, though. So it must be,
See the back? It has screws you take the side off. You just simply remove an HDD, plug in a SATA DVD drive and do your thing.
You can install an OS from a USB drive and there are USB ports on it.
Is it me or that's a sexy NAS.
If the OS drive dies you replace it with a new drive. There is a flash memory chip on board that will boot the device and bring up networking. You put the restore DVD into a computer on your network and run a program on it which searches for your home server on your network and then installs the OS over the wire.
Nas defiantly needs an OS they either run a windows home server or some stripped down linux distro.
In case of linux there is usually a flash image on onboard NAND that gets extracted and installed onto a special partition on the drives during volume creation.
So OS can be reinstalled from flash and flash can usually be reflashed using a special usb boot image that reburns the .bin file to the flash.
For writing to flash there's:
dd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
physdiskwrite http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php
Post FAIL - I tried to read your post like 5 times and gave up.
I defiantly on onboard your post.
Shame that it uses 945GC, which is a power hog compared to the processor. Pretty hot feature set, though. Does this setup beat a drobo?
Can more things please look like this? I'm tired of the future I'm living in not really looking like the future. I mean if I had a toaster that looked like this I'd eat the shit out of some toast.
Two toast one cup?
^^ HAHAHAH! Thanks MVP i needed that.
all that sound good and i get how it works. but the price is to hi on them you can get a atom netbook for less and that is all this is with no screens or video
Or you could build your own NAS from mini itx atom boards...
NAS is just a shared hard drive. It doesn't need an operating system. Also, its hot-swappable so if you have to change something, all you have to do is remove the drive u want to change and put a new one in.
A SAN would, theoretically, not require something usually called an "operating system" but a NAS most certainly requires one. Think about it: a NAS shares a file system (in this case this is exactly the same file system that could be used on a desktop machine) over a network, together with its user permissions, concurrency control, file locking, protocol management, web configuration interface (probably running apache+php or perl), etc. You can call it whatever but something supporting all this infrastructure is definitely an operating system.
It probably runs Linux or a stripped-down Windows Server.
Why can't these companies put a cheap 8 GB of flash in these machines for the OS instead of using the hard drives. Your better of building your own system with FreeNAS or even DIY with a linux distribution.
If it is using WHS, then the device would boot from the NIC to install WHS.
More info on WHS: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx
Best WHS Site: http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/
i really like this
D-Murph—
Your keen wit is above reproach, and I have always based my life on your teachings, but when you write about Acer's easyStore H340 "ravishing design" I kinda have to scratch my head buddy—to me it has all the appeal of a Diehard battery.
But apparently it's my aesthetics that are out of step here since I'm reading all these other EnGadgeteers sportin' wood over the Sears Craftsman sexiness of this box. ( ! ? ! )
Hey for a NAS, thats going to probably be sitting either in a closet somewhere or on a shelf in another room, the design is pretty good, I like the fact most of the controls and even a USB port for backups is in the front, no messing with feeling around there to turn it off (as if you would) or hook up a USB drive. The only question I have is in the pics of the rear, what the heck is that I/O card slot doing there? What's it for?
Any information about cost?
Unless that is a windows compatible logo there i might think it a bit more... im more of a linux supporter.. but then again most my home's computers are windows. thinking about all the compatibility issues with linux and windows would make me want to kill myself... (for example installing the printer so it usable in windows and linux).
If the price is close i would rather buy a 1tb asus eee nas. (it can also double as a fourth computer that i can connect to my lcd tv)